[Seesquared]

I just started using google docs (http://docs.google.com/) (formerly called writely), and I'm surprised I haven't found more mention of it around here. If you have high-speed internet, I encourage you to go check it out. The things that I really like about it are:

It maintains a record of all your previous revisions
You can share it with another person and then see what changes they make
Your files are accessible from anywhere (provided you have internet access)
Google's servers are redundant and a lot less likely to lose your work than your own computer
It's free

No, I don't work for google (I wish) - I just wanted to spread the word.

By the way, this is my first post as a new member but long-time lurker. I've got a lot of half-finished stories that I haven't had the guts to show to anyone to critique, and I'm hoping that over the upcoming winter break I can actually finish an idea for once. This is a great community and I've learned a lot from studying other people's work and I hope to learn more.

[JBI]

Welcome. Do you mind giving me a little more information on the uses of this new google function? You weren't very clear.

Enjoy the forums.

~JBI out.

[Seesquared]

I'm sorry, I guess I completely forgot to mention what it is eh?

Google Docs is like an online word processor. Once you get an account/sign in (if you have a gmail address, you can sign in using that), you click on "new document" and it opens up a blank document with a similar interface to word. When you save, your document is listed back at your account overview page. If you want to share it with someone, you just click the "Share now" button and enter someone's email address, and they can then view and make changes to your document. Each time you save, the new one is overwritten - BUT you can click on the "revisions" tab of your document and view any of the old versions. If someone else edited your document, it will highlight the changes and say who made them (similar to word's "track changes").

I hope that's clear enough. If you want to find out more about it, the easiest way is to just sign up and try it out.

[tracyt1800]

Interesting. This would probably be better than the jump drive I carry around all the time.

Can you share the document in such a way that the viewers can't edit it? Just read it?

[Seesquared]

Actually... you can do that, I didn't even notice before. You can share someone as a "collaborator" or a "viewer".

[tracyt1800]

I started using it last night. It's pretty impressive for an online editor. Definitely the best one I've used.

There's also a "Publish" option so you can allow anyone to see a read-only version of your document.

Thanks for pointing this out. It's pretty cool.